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Friday

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Class and Death

Over at the always thought-provoking Open Kingdom blog, Anthony Barnett makes an interesting point about class, you knew that good only English obsession had to get an airing today, and the rise of emotionalism in the country. Barnett writes that, “At its best (there were also worsts) upper-class behaviour was about good judgement providing the steel for strong emotions and inner integrity. What has changed is that these qualities can now be found more among the lower classes while the upper classes have lost their way… The ranks now know how to deal with loss. Those who once trained them no longer do.”Barnett has some anecdotal examples to back up his point. But I’m not sure there is any huge difference between the way the classes approach death.

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What did Diana change?

Matt’s cover a few weeks back illustrated how the Royals had absorbed the lessons of Diana’s life and death. There is little doubt that Diana has had a huge impact on the monarchy--which is, as Matt notes, in a far more secure state today than it was in the mid 1990s--but I wonder if she wasn’t more of an expression of things that had already changed rather than a driver of change herself. All the talk of how her death loosened our collective stiff upper lip forgets that Paul Gascoigne had already cried his way into the nation’s hearts in 1990 and how Tony Blair was doing soft-focus politics long before August 1997. Indeed, the public manipulated Diana--and certainly her memory--to its own ends far more than she manipulated it.

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A very public display of affection

Come on guys. You are being a little harsh. It may not be "normal" to mark the anniversary of a death - but nothing about Princess Diana's life or death was normal. Prince William and Harry had to share their mother with the entire world. No easy task. Watching today's Service of Remembrance made me cry unashamedly. I would imagine the reason Diana's sons organised this tribute to their mother was because they wanted the world to see they had grown up into two fine men their mother would have been rightly proud of. Harry's speech was not one of a man looking back with anger at the hand fate had dealt him; it was just an articulate, sensitive, moving tribute to a mother he loved. I applaud the pair of them.

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Blair’s Diana moment

Thinking back to the events of ten years ago, it is quite remarkable how Blair’s statement grabbed the mood of the nation. Watch this clip and note how Martin Lewis, who up to that point had been sombre but not grief-stricken, choked up summarising Blair’s remarks.  In time the public came to resent Blair for his ability to read its mood and steer it but it is remarkable the extent to which he possessed this skill. One of the odd things about watching The Queen is how the Queen Mother’s cynicism about Blair’s emotionalism that in 1997 seemed to sum up how out of touch the Royals were, now strikes a chord with a cynical, post-Iraq public.

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Today will not bring closure

As the excitement about today’s Diana memorial service grows, take a look at Fergus Shanahan’s plain-speaking column in the Sun. He makes the perfectly valid point that the anniversaries of deaths are rarely, if ever, celebrated: there are no services, for example, to mark the passing of the years since Churchill’s death on 24 January 1965. Nor does it seem likely that there will be a major event on 30 March 2012 to mark the milestone of a decade since the Queen Mother’s death.

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Diana’s death ten years on

The Britannica blog has been running a rather good forum on Diana and the cult of celebrity. Theodore Dalyrmple’s contribution challenges the sentimentality that has come to surround her in death. “In the orgy of demonstrative pseudo-grief that followed her death, Mr Blair said that the people had found a new way of being British. Indeed so: they had become emotionally incontinent and inclined to blubber in public when not being menacingly discourteous. They had come to believe that holding nothing back was the way to mental health, and their deepest emotional expression was the teddy bear that they were increasingly liable to leave at the site of a fatal accident or at the tomb of someone who had died in early adulthood.” The whole forum is well worth a look.

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Miliband and Browne: The Brits have not failed in Iraq

David Miliband and Des Browne take to the Washington Post this morning in an attempt to rebut claims from various US military and intelligence figures that the British have lost the South of Iraq.  The key paragraph of their piece reads:“Commanders on the ground expect that Basra province will in months, not years, be judged to have met the conditions for transfer to full Iraqi security control. As with each of the seven Iraqi provinces already transferred -- four in areas of Iraq previously controlled by U.S.-led forces, three in the south in the U.K.-led area of operations -- the final decision will be taken by the Iraqi government, in consultation with the U.S. commander of the multinational force, based on the conditions on the ground.

Thursday

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German wit

Rosemary Righter’s column in The Times today is trenchant stuff. She calls Diana’s death the “best thing that could have happened to the Royal family”, which seems rather strong even to a Diana-sceptic like myself. (One can only admire, though, her response to her editor when he asked her what all the messages on the tribute bouquets said to her: “One thing,” I said. “The nation cannot spell.” True. Angel was Angle, Heaven was Hevven and Love, more forgivably, was Luv.’) But the reason I am actually writing this post is that Righter has a fantastic example of that rarest of collector’s items, German wit.

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Guess which presidential candidate said this about Iran?

“For diplomacy to work, we need to dial up our political and economic pressure - not just our tough talk. Iran's troubling behavior depends in large part on access to billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue. That is why I introduced the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act last May, to build on a movement across the country to divest from companies that do significant business with Iran. This would send a clear message about where America stands, increasing Iran's isolation and hitting the Iranian regime where it hurts. The bill works in three ways. First, it would educate investors and pressure foreign companies to reconsider doing business with Iran by requiring the U.S.

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Was the Bush administration too principled for its own good in Iraq?

David Ignatius has an intriguing piece in the Washington Post today saying that the Bush administration made a big mistake by not interfering in the Iraqi elections back in 2005. Back then it was viewed as crucial that America did not try and rig the process. Indeed, the conventional wisdom was that the defeat of America’s favoured candidate, Ayad Allawi, was actually a good thing as it demonstrated that it had been a genuine contest. But Ignatius argues that America’s withdrawal from the contest only succeeded in leaving it open for Iran to pervert it to its own ends.

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Dave’s wrong choice of words on immigration

I have been mulling over Dave’s Newsnight performance, which was mostly very impressive. I think, however, that his choice of words on immigration was a mistake. The problem with suggesting that there is an acceptable quantum of immigrants, however politely that proposition is expressed, is that it chimes with all that is worst in the party’s history of coping with this thorniest of issues.

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Cameron’s Newsnight Review

David Cameron has for some time been wanting to do one of these Newsnight panel-style interviews. Watching it, I can see why. He excels at answering rapid fire questions, and easily recalls all his main slogans and sound bites. Here are my thoughts… 1. He could have been more robust rebutting Michael Crick when he questioned Cameron’s “anarchy in the UK” line. Throughout the Tory years, recorded violent crime peaked at 347,064 a year (in 1997). Last year, it was a record 1.3 million offences. Cameron’s researchers should click through and familiarise themselves with this staggering data. British streets have never been more dangerous.  2. He only mentioned “social responsibility” once. Good.  3.

Wednesday

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Cameron impresses in Newsnight grilling

You can watch the Newsnight special with David Cameron here. In it, Cameron confirms Fraser’s earlier report that the Tories will not, thankfully, be stopping all airport expansion. Cameron put in a fairly strong performance. He handled Stephanie Flanders line of questions about whether he felt that she, an unwed mother, should get married or not particularly well. He also did a good job of emphasising that there is nothing inconsistent with modernisation in being tough on crime. Tim Montgomerie has thoughts and analysis here.

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Will Brown try and beat the downturn?

Irwin Stelzer has a typically sharp piece in today’s Telegraph in which he makes a crucial point about a rather overlooked political consequence of the recent market turbulence. As Stelzer writes, “The former chancellor surely knows that tax receipts have been sustained largely by payments from high-earners in the City. He knows, too, that it is those very people who are taking a hit from the turmoil in financial markets, and are expecting their incomes to drop this year by at least 25 per cent. Fewer pounds taxed at top rates, lower Treasury receipts, bigger deficits. That forces the Bank to raise interest rates. End of economic growth. Brown must find it tempting to want to beat the downturn.

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Who could object to a statue of Mandela?

Earlier today, the great and the good were gathered a stone’s throw from the Spectator offices for the unveiling of a statue of Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square. Journalists thrive on disagreement, controversy and dissent, but this statue of a historic figure strikes me as one of those rare things: An Undeniable and Incontrovertible Good. However, in typing those words, I am instantly aware of my naiveté. Who do Coffee Housers predict will be the first prominent person to object to Mandela’s presence in the heart of Westminster? A bottle of champagne to whoever gets it right.

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The tragic fall of Amy Winehouse

There is something more than usually grotesque about the slow-motion downfall of Amy Winehouse being played out daily in the media. As the singer and her appalling husband holiday in St Lucia, their respective parents are fighting a shameful proxy battle at home, with her father-in-law, Giles, calling on Amy’s fans to boycott her records until she cleans up. She looks pitifully skeletal in the latest pictures, hollow-eyed and miserable. The worst of it is – beyond the horror of watching a human life collapse like a frame-by-frame car crash – is that she is, quite simply, one of the best soul singers of all time, possessed of a voice that bewitches, infiltrates the heart and defies emotional gravity. This is not just another Britney or Li-Lo celebrity rehab story.

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The importance of what Bush is saying about Iran

President Bush’s statement to the American Legion  that “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities” is understandably getting a lot of ink this morning. But this is far from the first time that Bush has warned Iran of the consequences of its actions in Iraq. Back in January, he told the American public: “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

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Paul Keating regrets

APEC--the group which brings together the countries of the Pacific Rim including the US, Russia, Japan and China--is meeting in Sydney next week and to mark the occasion former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, one of the organisation's creators, gave a speech and an interview lamenting its failure over the last ten years to turn into a regional security organisation. He makes some good points especially about the toxic relationship between China and Japan, which if anything is worse than when he left office ten years ago. Read the whole thing.

Tuesday

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Cameron’s next test

As Matt, Fraser and Tim Montgomerie have all argued things are looking up for Project Cameron. Peter Riddell in Wednesday’s Times is more cautious but he still thinks that “Cameron and the Tories are no longer retreating” which is progress considering how Brown has swept all before him these past few months. But if this momentum is to be maintained, David Cameron will have to show great political skill in handling the forthcoming John Gummer and Zac Goldsmith-authored policy review on the environment. Already word has leaked out that they are proposing a halt to all airport expansion in the UK. This is a barmy idea and is sure to spark off a firestorm of protest: Iain Dale has already blown a gasket.

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How Cameron can mend the broken society

Was the Rhys Jones murder just a crime, or the result of a new phenomenon? The answer splits left and right. We’ve heard strikingly little from Gordon Brown – and little wonder. The idea of there being a “broken society” undermines his credo. Has Britain not benefited from ten years of a Labour government dedicated to making things better for the worse off? What about all those child tax credits, those being (ahem) “lifted out of poverty”? Surely these people are all better off? During the Labour years, violent crime has more than doubled. Youth unemployment is higher than under the Tories, lone parenthood is at a record high. These are the three symptoms of what Charles Murray identifies as an underclass.